21st Century Fox Shareholders Approve Delisting From Australian Securities Exchange

This is not an unexpected move. 21st Century Fox today announced its stockholders approved the company’s request to remove its foreign listing from the Australian Securities Exchange. This just involves Fox, not News Corp, the entity that includes most of Rupert Murdoch’s publishing and Australian holdings since the operations separated last summer. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said when the plan was announced a few months ago, that the change is part of “our ongoing agenda to simplify the operating and capital structure of our Company.” Fox “has only limited operations in Australia, and we believe that consolidating the trading of our stock in the world’s largest equity market would provide improved liquidity to the Company’s stockholders and greater efficiencies for the Company.” 21st Century Fox said today it expects to file its request for the removal of its full foreign listing with the ASX on March 24. If approved, delisting is expected to occur on or about May 8. Fox said earlier that there would be no changes to its “operations, employees or business” from the delisting. CFO John Nallen also said that Fox will have a plan to help Australian investors who want to continue to hold Fox shares to own ones that trade on NASDAQ.